Five Critical Points to Consider so that You don’t Miss the Best Hosting Company

The process of choosing the best hosting company to meet your web needs is often a difficult and confusing decision as there are so many options. The wide selection of web hosts has both pros and cons when weighing your options before making a final choice. Hosting companies offer many of the same features bundled in similar packages at competitive prices, making the decision even more complicated.

As a costumer, having a diverse selection is an advantage when it comes to purchasing power; however, with so many choices, the best hosting company may easily slip through your grasp if you don’t know what essential aspects to look for in web hosting services.
If you’re browsing for a hosting service to manage your website, it’s important to keep a few critical areas in mind to help guide your final decision including: reliability/uptime, products and services, web hosting features, price value and customer support.

Reliability/ Uptime

A host’s guaranteed reliability and uptime should be at the top of your check list. Reliability is a huge contributing factor to the daily operations of your website. For example, if your host is non-responsive, as an e-commerce entrepreneur, expect to lose profits for the day based on the fact of downtime; thus potential vanished sale leads and purchases, as well as annoyed first time visitors never returning.
Although many web hosts boast 99.9% uptime guarantees, promises aren’t always fulfilled. Read customer reviews and other available company information to get a better insight on what exactly the host does offer. Also, take notes of any trial offers or money-back guarantees if you’re not satisfied with the services provided.

Products and Services

When it comes to the products and services, often the hosting service bundles become blurry and packages seem to be a clone of competitors’ plans. The first step in making a wise decision is to take an assessment of your hosting needs and begin to weed out hosts that either can’t accommodate your needs or offer the services for ridiculous prices.
To help stay focused and narrow down your choices, keep in mind the host’s server performance, application/scripting compatibility; disk space available, allocated bandwidth; and processor speeds. If the host doesn’t meet your criteria, move on to the next to find the best.

Web Hosting Features

Not to be confused with products and services, web features are the bells and whistles that a hosting company offers to its’ customers that sets them apart from competitors. This is a critical area when making a decision on which host to manage your website because you do want a plan that includes everything you need, but don’t want a more expensive package that offers upgraded features you’ll never use. While one host may offer unlimited disk space and bandwidth, another may offer a similar package pricewise, however, place restrictive limits on the available space and downloads. Assess your needs and stick to your plan.

Price Value

Yet another important aspect to take into consideration while looking to purchase a web host is price value. Although pricing can be subjective depending upon your hosting budget, many novice customers opt for the cheapest web host available; however, it’s important to remember that usually you get what you pay for. Unfortunately, often the cheapest hosting providers offer unreliable services despite providing unlimited usage. On the other hand, the hosts offering enhanced web features and customized services are not bashful about charging excessive amounts for their hosting packages. It’s only common sense to do some research, then compare options and prices to find the best host at an affordable price with proven reliability.

Customer Support

Finally, excellent customer support is an essential component of a successful relationship between you, your web host and success. Often customers don’t experience dealing with customer support until major technical difficulties arise. You want to have 24×7 phone, e-mail and live chat access to customer support to help troubleshoot you through your headaches. For the best web hosting company, opt for one that has awards and accolades under its belt for excellence customer service.